Press Release

The GEORGE ADAMS GALLERY is pleased to present an exhibition of figurative paintings by ELMER BISCHOFF (American, 1916-1991). The exhibition, which features 11 paintings made between 1954 and 1972, will be on view through August 14th. This New York exhibition is the first in 25 years to feature Bischoff’s figurative paintings.

ELMER BISCHOFF is best known as a founder of Bay Area figuration, along with his close friends and colleagues Richard Diebenkorn and David Park. Characterized by rich coloration and painterly technique that borrowed nearly as much as it rejected from Abstract Expressionism, Bay Area figuration became recognized as a significant movement as a result of a survey exhibition organized by the Oakland Art Museum in 1955. That same year Bischoff had a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at the San Francisco School of Fine Art where he had just been appointed chair of the graduate program.

Having previously experimented with surrealism and abstraction throughout the 1940s, Bischoff began to work figuratively in 1952, a year after Park and two years before Diebenkorn. The strong influence of Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard on Bischoff is evident in the earliest work included in the exhibition, “Playground,” 1954. However, By the mid-1950s Bischoff’s brushwork and palette became more assertive while his subject matter suggests close study of Edward Hopper and Edvard Munch. Included in the exhibition are three examples: “Montgomery Block,” 1955; “Woman Getting A Haircut,” 1962; and “Figure at Window,” 1966.

As a final development, in the late 1960s Bischoff fell under the spell of Richard Wagner whose operas he listened to almost daily. His fascination with Wagner – and with German mysticism and mythology – accounts for the large-scale and newly cerebral qualities notable in his work of this time. “Figure, Boat, Clouds,” 1971 and “Figure with Tree,” 1972 - the latter is thought to be the last figurative painting he completed – are among the late works in the exhibition.

In 1972, after 20 years of working figuratively, Bischoff returned to abstraction. He also began working with acrylic paints and, in contrast to his figurative work, these new canvases are full of color and light. For Bischoff the shift to abstraction was liberating, but it is his figurative work that is the basis of his reputation and is still considered the highpoint of his artistic achievement.

Artists

News & Press

Simon Carr for The New York Sun

Elmer Bischoff: 'Figurative Paintings'

This absorbing show is the first gallery exhibit in 25 years to focus exclusively on Bischoff’s figurative works. On leaving the gallery, for a moment, the world is changed, its colors and shapes seen through Bischoff's eyes.

John Yau for Hyperallergic

Elmer Bischoff: 'Figurative Paintings'

The eleven paintings in the exhibition date from 1954 to 1972, covering all but the first two years that he worked figuratively. I found the experience paradoxical: happy to see paintings from different phases while simultaneously wishing that there could have been a larger selection in a more spacious setting. Bischoff may have gotten his due in San Francisco, but he certainly hasn’t gotten it in New York, and I hardly think of him as a regional painter.

Elmer Bischoff: 'Figurative Paintings' in The New Yorker

Goings on About Town

Elmer Bischoff: Figurative Paintings

Large, moody, startlingly strong paintings, made between 1953 and 1972, argue for greater recognition for the Bay Area peer of Richard Diebenkorn and David Park. Bischoff countered Abstract Expressionism (which he knew first hand, as a student of Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko) with a stubborn loyalty to figuration. His style might be termed Neo-Expressionist, avant la lettre, but with deep roots in modern traditions. Smoldering color and furious brushwork lend as much drama to a domestic scene, “Girl Getting a Haircut” (1962), as to a grand sea view, “Figure at Window with Boat” (1966). You feel as much as see the art. It feels like joy under pressure. Through Aug. 14.

Ken Johnson for the New York Times

Elmer Bischoff, ‘Figurative Paintings’

During Abstract Expressionism’s heyday in the 1950s, three artists in San Francisco turned away from abstraction and back to representational painting, founding a movement that came to be known as Bay Area Figuration. They were David Park, Richard Diebenkorn and the subject of this stirring exhibition at the George Adams Gallery, Elmer Bischoff (1916-1991).